


Don't Look And It Won't Hurt

by Mourningbirds



Category: Narcos (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, F/M, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Intimacy, Mutual Pining, Panic Attacks, Touch-Starved, soft Javi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:10:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26010118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mourningbirds/pseuds/Mourningbirds
Summary: Javi is a regular at an all-night diner in Texas where he makes a connection with a lonely waitress.
Relationships: Javier Peña/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 60
Kudos: 112





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Currently rated Teen but the rating will change in later chapters as the smut is added. Thank you to my cheerleader and beta, yespolkadot_kitty

There is a town some way outside Laredo whose main street has barely changed in twenty years. There’s a faded pool hall and a one screen movie theatre. Next door to the movie theatre is a pawn broker that Buys Any Gold, Cashes Checks and places No Limit On Debit Cards. There’s a diner here too, _Harper’s_. It’s a dreary sort of a place but it’s open 24 hours and, being the only one in town, does just enough business to stay afloat. On the corner is a laundromat with a little store attached. From sparsely furnished shelves it offers cigarettes, bait and other items deemed essential in a town like this. It’s early in the morning. Still so early and so quiet that you can hear the rough pads and unclipped claws of stray dogs as they strike the August-dry concrete. A woman turns the corner and walks into Harper’s. It’s her birthday today but she’s going to work anyway. 

“Morning Justine.”

“Hey Frances, happy birthday.”

“Thanks. Busy night?”

“Not really. You know.”

Frances walks through the empty restaurant and into the little locker room where Billy is sleeping, propped against the wall. He’s taking his usual nap in the no-man’s-land between feeding the night workers from the mill and the early risers who come in before the day cook arrives.

Her uniform is the kind of button-down dress that the retro places in the city have a team of marketers design for their staff in cheerful shades of turquoise or pink. Frances’s is a hand-me-down in beige polyester, with countless pin-prick holes marking the fabric around the machine embroidered  _ Frances _ above her left breast where other women have unravelled before her. She leans in close to the rust-dotted mirror and presses a concealer stick on the shadows beneath her eyes.

As Frances re-enters the restaurant a man she doesn’t recognise is settling on a stool at the counter. He seems out of place, as though he was looking for the nearest bar but gave up before he found it. He has dark hair that’s a little rumpled, but maybe that’s because of the early hour, or the late one. Though he’s sitting she can tell he’s tall. Long limbs, broad shoulders. His face is all hard angles with cheek bones you could cut yourself on. But there’s a softness there, too. Something in the eyes. They’re dark brown and turn down at the edges. They give him a sad look. If he was a woman he’d probably get told to cheer up all the time.

He’s wearing jeans fitted close around his hips and thighs. And a black shirt with short sleeves that show a long lean strength in his arms. She wonders what he does for a living. He has the kind of body that’s been built by life rather than a gym. A feeling she can’t identify rises from her belly and sits in her throat and then she realises,  _ oh yes _ . He’s the kind of man she’d have had a crush on, back when there was any point in having crushes. In the days before there were shadows to conceal and tables to wait on. 

Frances looks up at the man’s face to find that he is looking right back at her and she stiffens with embarrassment. 

She looks at the floor and concentrates on walking to the counter to relieve Justine.

“Haven’t seen you since Thursday,” says Justine to the man. “Last night’s girl wasn’t hungry?”

“Guess not.” He peers, sleepy-eyed, into the mirror behind the counter, flattening down his moustache and rubbing his stubble with one large hand. 

“Maybe you’ve been busy with work, huh?” 

“Yeah, summer’s a busy season for us taxidermists.”

Justine rolls her eyes. “Are you ever gonna tell me your real job?”

“No.”

Frances has been hovering a few steps away, waiting for a break in their conversation.

“Alright, scat now Justine. I’m here,” she says.

“You shouldn’t be here on your birthday. Why the hell ain’t you layin’ in bed while some pretty man brings you champagne and gives you a foot rub?” 

“There aren't any pretty men in this town.”

“Wait, you two don’t know each other. Frances, meet Javier. One of my new night time regulars. Often slinks in here about two in the mornin’ with some happy lookin’ girl or other. Most of ‘em ravenous for half the menu,” then, louder, turning to him, “all seem to work up a fearsome appetite somehow, don't they, Javier?”

“Everybody needs to eat, Justine.”

He nods at Frances, rises from his seat and offers her his hand to shake, “Javi.” 

Mortified by the manner of this introduction, she can't meet his eyes. Just gives his hand a perfunctory shake and releases it quickly.

“Hey I been meanin’ to ask you, Javier,” says Justine as she unties her apron. “How come all your girlfriends’ hair’s always so messed up? It’s almost like they've been rollin’ around in a haystack half the night.”

“I don’t know, Justine, maybe that’s the fashion these days.”

“Mm, I expect that’s so.”

For the next hour Frances looks after the handful of early regulars while Javi sits at the counter, smoking and nodding in thanks when she refills his cup. Sometimes she notices him looking at her. It's a distracted kind of gaze, not aggressive or suggestive of anything. But still, she wishes he couldn’t see her tired eyes and the way her uniform pulls too tight across her hips and stomach. She's got used to feeling invisible to men. Takes refuge in their disinterest in the same way she does the safety of her little apartment. The only mirror there is the compact she keeps in her makeup bag. It's cracked but that hardly matters, really.

Finally it becomes too much and she rounds on him, glaring. “There something else I can get you?”

“I’m all set, thanks.” He waves his cigarette at the cup in front of him.

A few minutes later he stubs out his cigarette and drops a few bills on the counter.

“Happy birthday, Frances.”

She watches him leave, staring at the doorway after he’s gone until the insistent sound of the pick-up bell brings her back to herself. 

“Hey, do the customers gotta come back here and pick up their own bacon now?”

“Alright Billy, I’m coming.”

.

Javi heads for home after leaving Harper’s. He's looking forward to a rare Saturday to himself after having worked through the night and intends to sleep until noon if he can manage it. Sleep doesn't always come easy to him; his body is often exhausted after working late, but his brain too wired to shut down. On those nights a trip to the diner gives him a much needed buffer between work and home. It doesn't always help. Sometimes there are memories that only a bottle of whiskey can chase away. This isn't one of those times though and he thinks he'll get a few hours.

Harper's has become a reassuring constant in his life. The menu never changes. The coffee is reliably inoffensive. The clientele and staff are predictable. Justine teases him about his sex life and he teases her back and it always goes the same way. She asks what he does for a living and he responds with increasingly ridiculous answers. Last week he told her he was an escort. He was particularly pleased with that one and wasn't surprised when she almost believed him. After all, she does see him with a lot of women, the diner being a convenient place to refuel after a late night encounter. 

When Javi gets home his blackout curtains are still closed from yesterday morning. He stares at the neglected pot plant on his kitchen counter, a gift from his mother. Its leaves are drooping pitifully. “You look how I feel, my friend.” He takes a shower and falls into bed, naked and still a bit damp. 

.

  
The following Friday night Frances is in bed reading when she gets a panicked call from Billy. Justine is sick, he says. Can she come in and cover the night shift? Maria will work for her tomorrow.

By the time she gets there it’s just after one. Javi comes in a couple of hours later but this time he’s with a woman; a dark-haired, coltish beauty. Frances’s fingers worry at the hem of her apron as he pulls out a chair for her. Billy calls over, “Hey Javi! How’s it going? Justine’s sick! I’ve been waiting tables half the night but Frances is here now. Oh boy was I ever glad to see her.”

“Sight for sore eyes, huh Billy?” Javi replies, and he winks at Frances. He  _ winks _ at her. She doesn’t know what to do with her face so she turns her back, picks up a cloth and dries some coffee cups that aren’t wet. Of course he would wink after saying something like that. Absurd that she would be a sight for anyone’s eyes, sore or otherwise.

When she can’t put it off any longer she approaches their table. The woman is wearing a gold nameplate necklace,  _ Marissa _ . Even her name is pretty. Frances feels like an old rag next to a silk scarf.

“What’ll it be?”

Marissa stretches happily, with the easy way of a woman who is comfortable in her own skin. “I’m starving!”

“Good for you. What can I get you?”

She studies the placemat menu. “Mm, I will have... pancakes. Tall stack with extra syrup. No, wait. The bacon biscuit breakfast. Can I get that with extra biscuits? And extra bacon?”

“Sure you can.”

“And pancakes.”

“That be a tall stack with extra syrup?”

“Yes, please. And orange juice.”

Frances turns to Javier. “And for you?”

He glances fondly at his companion. “I already ate.”

_ Jesus, this guy. _

“Coffee then?”

“Perfect.”

Frances watches Marissa as she eats. She thinks about her first meeting with Javi and grows anxious at what he might have seen in her face when he caught her staring at him. 

Javi knowing that she’s attracted to him would be bad enough. But if he ever thought that she had hopes of pursuing him, or counted herself in the same league as Marissa, that would be too humiliating to live with. 

Business starts slowing down so she picks up her book. She’s still reading when Javi comes to the counter to pay his check.

“What are you reading?” He jerks his chin at her hands, rubs his lower lip with his thumb and smiles. He has a dimple in his right cheek.

“A book.” She gives an irritated sigh and shows him the cover.

He reads the title, “The Last Picture Show. Any good?"

“Yeah it’s pretty great actually.” 

“Maybe I should read it then.”

This is going to be harder than she thought, for Javi has unwittingly found her weak spot. Frances never gets to talk about books except with Mrs Jackson, the librarian, when she takes the bus an hour each way for her monthly library visit, and she’s too exhausted and far too starved of bookish conversation to resist now. But just as she takes a breath to speak she is bolstered by the sight of Marissa returning from the ladies’ room.

“Do what you like,” she says flatly. Then she deposits his money in the cash register without thanking him for the huge tip he left in the tip jar and turns her back. There, that should do it.

**.**

**  
** Justine is still sick some nights later. Billy and Frances visited her in hospital yesterday where she is waiting for surgery. She was in good spirits though,  _ The doc said I got the worst fibroids he’s ever seen. He’s gonna put me in a text book. _

Frances has agreed to cover Justine’s night shifts until she’s recovered. She was guilted into it on the basis that it’s easier to recruit a temp waitress for days than nights. But she’s come to enjoy the nights, with their long stretches of calm that provide her with precious opportunities to read and think. The only difficulty is navigating Javi’s visits.

“Billy, do me a favour would you? Could you take Javi’s order?”

“What the hell?”

“Just, just go over there and talk to him like you happened to be passing. Then say ‘hey buddy while I’m here, what can I get you?’ or, no, this is better, recommend something.” 

“Lady, have you had a stroke? Are you tasting pennies right now? Why do I have to take his order?”

“Because I don’t want to. Would you quit wasting time and just do it?”

He shakes his head. “You gotta give me something more than that, Frances.” Billy counts off on his fingers, “He’s the only customer in here. This is not the kind of guy that women want to avoid. And I've seen you looking at him, no, don’t deny it, I've seen you.”

“He makes me nervous. Please, Billy.”

He sighs and snatches her notepad and pen.

“No, don’t take that.” She snatches it back. “Act casual. Like you were just passing.”

“Oh sure, that’ll fool him.”

. 

Javi is cooking a pot of chilli. Barefoot and bare chested, with his jeans unfastened and a cold bottle of beer in hand, he is stirring the pot and trying not to think about work or other vexing things. But his thoughts keep returning to Frances.

She’s been rattling around in his head since the night he’d asked about her book. He was still thinking about her when he’d taken Marissa home. She could tell something was bothering him but he'd made a vague reference to work and distracted her with a kiss. Javi knows his talents and it’s not the first time he’s used that one to get himself out of trouble. 

He also knows that he isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. It’s okay if Frances doesn’t like him. What’s bothering Javi is the thought that he makes her uncomfortable. He’d suspected this for some time and hoped he was wrong. But when he’d seen her begging Billy to take his order it was impossible to avoid the truth any longer. 

When the chilli is done he takes a bowl to the sofa, switches on the TV and flicks through the channels, settling on a film. Jessica Lange is telling Jack Nicholson that she’s tired of what’s right and wrong while he makes a half-hearted attempt to talk her down from murder, too cock-dumb to resist with any conviction.

**.**

It’s getting toward the end of Frances’s shift early on a Sunday. Javi turned up about an hour ago and is sitting alone at a table, writing a letter. From time to time he sighs heavily, folds his arms across his body and stares out of the window. 

She’s noticed that he doesn’t look at her so much these days and he hasn’t tried to make conversation again. This gives Frances a complicated emotion that she can’t put a name to. She might be able to call it relief, were it not barbed with disappointment. But it has made things easier, bringing a ceasefire of sorts. 

And they’re pleasant, these hours, being either too late or too early for most people. Billy has gone for his nap and Frances has just picked up her book, positioning herself so she can see Javi over the top of it. She likes his thoughtful eyes and the way his forearms look when he folds them.

The door swings open and an out of towner stumbles in and sits heavily on a stool at the counter. He’s young and clearly the worse for liquor, and Frances spends the next few minutes trying to shut down his attempts to get her attention.

Nothing seems to deter him though. He becomes more and more talkative and increasingly direct.  _ Does she have a boyfriend? What time does her shift end? _ She looks around the diner, hoping to see someone who needs their table cleared or their check rung up, but Javi is the only customer. He raises his eyebrows at her, in an unmistakable _ are you okay?  _ gesture but she blanks him.

She’s on the verge of going to wake Billy when the drunk grabs her wrist. She pulls away with all her weight but his grip is tight and his fingers are digging into her skin. She tries to pry them loose with her free hand but he’s too strong and her hands are shaking and useless with panic. He yanks her towards him, “You’re way too pretty to be a waitress.”

“Yeah, that’s what ended my waitressing career. It’s a tragic story,” Javi says as he approaches the counter.

The guy loosens his grip in surprise and Frances’s momentum causes her to stumble back, nearly losing her balance.

“Get out,” says Javi. His voice is terrifying. Deep and low and shockingly different to the usual tone that seems to come from somewhere soft at the back of his throat.

“Fuck you.”

The drunk’s wallet is on the counter and Javi picks it up, extracts a handful of bills, and, before he can react to that, shoves the wallet into the guy’s top pocket. Then he grabs his collar with so much force that it rips. With one hand fisted into the back of his jeans waistband and the other at his collar, Javi drags him to the door and shoves him out so hard that he crashes onto the sidewalk, face-first.

Javi closes the door, turns to Frances and, seeing that her eyes are desperate and wild and she is gasping for air, asks, “Where are the keys?”

“What?”

“The diner keys, Frances. I need you to tell me where they are. Can you remember?” He is gentle but insistent.

She doesn’t have any words but she can point to the hook under the cash register. Javi reaches over the counter to retrieve the keys and locks the door. Then he flips the sign to  _ Sorry! We’re closed _ , and pulls down the blinds.

He steps behind the counter but keeps a wide distance from her.

“Are you okay?”

“I can’t breathe.” She is looking towards the door in terror.

“Frances, look at me.”

She forces herself to turn away from the door and look at his face.

“That’s it.” He holds her gaze for a few moments without speaking. Then, “Look at my hand. See what I’m doing?” He raises his hand to his solar plexus. “Copy me.”

She lifts a trembling hand and presses it to her own body.

“Good. Now breathe into your hand,” he says.

“It hurts!”

“I know it does. It’ll stop soon, I promise. Just watch my hand and breathe with me.”

They stand like that for a few minutes until they are breathing in unison. He doesn’t speak, just lets her see the rhythm of his chest rising and falling under his hand, until gradually her own stuttering, shallow breaths begin to deepen and lengthen. 

“Getting better?”

She nods. The white-hot pain in her chest is subsiding.

“Why don’t you sit down? I’ll get you something to drink.”

She takes a seat on the padded bench of the nearest booth and he goes to the sink and gets her a glass of water. Then she remembers, “Billy hides a bottle of brandy behind the coffee machine.”

“Well, thank you Billy,” he mutters. He soon finds the bottle and brings it to Frances with two glasses. “They say you shouldn't drink alone, right?”

He sits opposite her and pours her a generous shot, a half for himself and puts his feet up on his bench, mirroring her.

“What just happened to me?”

“The adrenaline in your body made it hard for you to breathe.”

She shakes her head. “What? How? How do you know? How did you know what to do?”

“Train for it at work.”

“What is your work?”

He lights a cigarette and gives her an assessing look. “I’m a DEA special agent.”

Frances stares at him. “You are not.”

“I promise you that I am. Do you want to see my handcuffs?”

_ Yes, she does _ . “You don’t look like a government agent.”

“Oh yeah? What does a government agent look like?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “Scary.”

“I just threw a man out of a diner with my bare hands. I was pretty damn scary.”

She lets out a watery laugh, “Yeah, you were.”

She takes a drink and almost immediately it goes to her head. She closes her eyes in relief, letting it blur the sharp edges of the night. They drink in silence for a minute.

“Do your girlfriends know about your job?”

“My girlfriends?”

“Come on, you know what I mean. The women you bring here.” 

She’s emboldened by the brandy but she still feels nervous, acknowledging this side of him. Casual sex feels to Frances like a clique she was never cool enough to join. Surely anyone would sense that she is an imposter in even a conversation about it, let alone the act itself. But the alcohol, the drama and the late hour have somehow suspended reality and she knows she won’t be able to broach this later, when the normal rules of their odd little dynamic are back in play.

“Oh. Them,” he nods, looking into his glass. “They aren’t my girlfriends.”

“Are they other people’s girlfriends?”

“I don’t know." He shrugs. Takes a drink. "Maybe some of them are.”

“Do they know about each other?”

“None of them want to be my girlfriend, believe me. And they know I’m not interested in being anyone’s boyfriend.”

And she’s grateful there is alcohol in her system to absorb the impact of that.

Javi sits up straighter and rubs his thumb over his lower lip. Then, pointedly, “Look, everyone has a good time.”

He keeps his gaze on her as he exhales smoke away from her face and then that feeling is back in her throat. The one she had the first time she saw him. Something liquefying and exhilarating. She drains her glass and pours herself another drink. Then she tilts the bottle towards his glass but he shields it with his hand.

“I’m sorry I was mean to you.”

He looks at her, confused.

“When we first met. And the second time.”

He takes a drink and shakes his head ruefully, “Yeah, for a while there I thought I was going to have to find myself another diner.”

It’s clear that he’s teasing her but she groans with distress and hides her face in the crook of her elbow.

She lowers her arm and lets out a shaky sigh. “I can’t explain it.”

“You don’t have to,” he says softly. And something pulls tight in her chest at this. It makes her feel for a moment that she is okay. Whatever she is, and however she is, it is okay. And she can’t remember the last time she felt like that.

"Anyway, I can handle it. People are mean to me at work all the time,” he stubs out his cigarette. “That’s what my handcuffs are for.”

She pours herself another shot, partly to divert his attention from her face and also because she needs it after that. She nods towards the door, “I should open up again.”

“No fucking way. I’m going to drive you home.”

“I can’t go home. This is a 24 hour diner. The last time we closed was five years ago and that was only because Billy got drunk on his birthday and set fire to the kitchen. He tried to light his cake candles with a catering blow torch.”

Javi stands up. “Alright, go get your things, I’ll find the blow torch.”

She feels a surge of joy and wonders how she has gone from acting like a little girl punching the arm of a boy she likes to-- whatever this is. Why is she unable to have a normal reaction to this man? She’s grateful when he interprets her smile incorrectly.

“I’m serious,” he says. “If that’s what it’ll take I’ll set the whole damn block on fire.”

“Okay, but I can walk. I live real close.”

“I don’t care if you live next door. You’ve had a shock and that piece of shit is probably roaming around out there somewhere. Add to that, you’re drunk.”

“I am not!”

“You think I don’t know an intoxicated person when I see one? I trained for that too, you know.”

“You had to go to school to recognise a drunk person? Wow.”

“Frances,” he says in a stern  _ don’t argue with me  _ voice.

After a beat, during which she files that voice away for later, she says, “Okay, fine,” drinks half her shot and leads the way to the locker room with the joyous elation that comes with playing hooky.

They shake Billy awake. Frances presses the keys into his hand and tells him to lock up after them until the day staff arrives. It takes a while for her to get ready to leave because she can’t find her locker key. Eventually Javi gets tired of watching her fumble through her pockets and jimmies the padlock.

“They teach you that in DEA school too?” she says, pulling her jacket out of her locker.

“No, I learned that in high school. I had some close acquaintances over at the Catholic girls school and the Sisters locked up the dorm block at eight sharp.”

“Javi!”

“What? The girls needed me to tutor them on their Spanish conjugations. They were counting on me.”

“You are unbelievable.”

“That’s what they tell me, baby” he says, helping her with her jacket. It’s a frumpy thing that her Aunt Di gave her when she was clearing out her closet and somewhere at the back of her mind she knows she should feel embarrassed about it, but she doesn’t. She feels  _ fantastic _ . She’s tipsy and unselfconscious. She hasn't had this much fun in years. A handsome man is going to drive her home.

And, wait, did he just flirt with her? Frances is almost certain she’s never been flirted with in her life so she isn’t sure, but it felt like flirting and this might be the closest she ever gets to it so, fuck it, she’s going to take it.

On the way out he picks up his papers and Frances collects her unfinished glass of brandy.

When they reach the door he pauses. “Wait. You’re bringing your drink?”

“Yes. I’ve had a shock,” she explains. He shakes his head and forces down the corners of his mouth.

Javi is parked across the street. He opens the passenger side door with a  _ your carriage awaits _ gesture and Frances hands him her glass to hold while she gets in with the studied care of drunk people everywhere, holding down the skirt of her uniform and remembering the way her grandmother taught her to get into a car,  _ knees together!  _ Once she is safely inside he hands back her glass and shuts the door.

He drives a stick shift and she’s glad he hasn’t covered his short sleeves with a jacket because it is pleasant to rest her head against the cool window and watch the muscles working in his arm as he moves through the gears.

It occurs to her then that she ought to feel scared, or at least vulnerable, being drunk in this strange man’s car. For he is a stranger, really. She doesn’t even know his last name. He has acted with nothing but chivalry tonight but isn’t that how these things go? He could drive her anywhere right now, park in some quiet, dark place and overpower her with his strength. He could, but he won’t. She knows he won’t.

She’d known it at their first meeting. Saw it in the lines of his face, heard it in the soft lilt of his voice and felt it in his big hand that had so effortlessly encircled hers when he shook it. His gentleness all the more pronounced for the promise of the coiled strength she’d felt thrumming beneath the surface.

When Javi insists on seeing her right to the door of her apartment she wishes it wasn’t four thirty in the morning so that there might at least be someone around to witness this; a neighbour, the super, Arturo the building cat. Anyone, really.

He waits in the hall while she drops her bag. 

“Thank you for driving me home. And for, well, everything tonight.” 

She’s holding an empty glass. The third brandy is fully in her system now and she can feel her inhibitions evaporating, taking her to that point of drunkenness where thoughts are voiced as soon as they occur to the thinker. “You’re a good man, Javi.”

He puts his hands on his hips, rolls his eyes and looks down the hall, his face all studied grumpiness. Too uncomfortable with such a compliment to look at her.

“What’s your mom’s name?”

He’s so caught off guard by this question that he tells her without thinking, then, “Wait,  _ why _ ?”

“Cause I’m gonna call her up and tell her what a good job she did raising her son.”

“Oh for--” but he laughs and she laughs too. It’s the first time she’s heard him laugh and she feels a swell of happiness at being the cause of it. 

“I’m  _ sorry _ . I’ve had too much to drink. I know I’m annoying when I’m drunk. Joe used to warn me all the time,  _ I think you’ve had enough, Franny. _ ”

“Who’s Joe?”

“My ex.”

“That explains a lot.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Aren’t you forgetting something?” he takes her keys from the outside lock and hands them to her.

“Oh.”

“Goodnight, Frances. Lock the door.”

“Okay.” 

Then they both stand there looking at each other until eventually she realises that he’s waiting for her to shut the door.

Javi waits in the hall until he hears the lock turn from the inside, then he drives home.


	2. Chapter 2

“I’m telling you, Frances, he’s perfect for you. Perfect!”

“And I’m telling you, Shelby, I don’t want to be set up with your cousin. Now will you quit it?” Frances thrusts a plate of untouched bacon and pancakes towards Billy. “Toast, William! This is for Bobby. He always has toast.”

She turns back to Shelby and asks, as though against her better judgement, “What’s so perfect about this guy anyway?”

“Nuh uh, I didn’t say he’s perfect, I said he’s perfect _for you_. He’s a professor at the college.” Shelby turns to Javi. “Isn’t that perfect for her, Javi? A professor! And her always reading those books.”

“Yeah. Sounds perfect,” he says. 

Shelby looks at him with a blank sort of irritation, thrown off her rhythm by his lack of enthusiasm. 

There’s a discarded newspaper on the stool next to Javi and he picks it up, aiming to tune out Shelby as she resumes her description of the most eligible bachelor in South Texas. But when he tries to read the front page he finds it’s just a grey blur. He turns the pages with deliberate casualness anyway, while he tries to arrange his thoughts.

Frances had flinched sheepishly when he’d walked through the diner door, just twenty one hours after driving her home. But while they’d only had time to exchange a greeting before Shelby arrived, after locking up the pool hall for the night, it was clear that the veil of hostility had been lifted and something else had been wrought in its place. A fine thread of affinity.

He doesn’t talk about his job when he’s at Harper’s. The guessing game with Justine arose from his need to have somewhere he can go when he wants to be Javi instead of Agent Peña. But last night it had felt easy to tell Frances the truth when she’d asked, and he supposes they must have spun this thread together while he wasn’t paying attention. But he’s paying attention now.

She rubs the small of her back. It’s a gesture he’s noticed a few times before. His eyes follow the cut of her uniform clinging to the curves of her hips and belly and he wonders if Shelby’s cousin would find pleasure in the shape of her body. Would he be charmed to see her tipsy on two brandies? Would he flirt with her out of habit, but notice the artlessly carnal look on her face and think about how much he wants to put that look on her face again?

Finally Frances shuts Shelby down, “Alright that’s enough, I don’t care how impressive his stock portfolio is, I’m not interested.”

It’s then that Javi realises he has been clenching his jaw. He puts it down to too much coffee and pushes his cup away.

***

A week passes before Javi visits Harper’s again and Frances spends much of that time thinking about him. Ignoring desire has been a matter of self-preservation for a long time. And it’s been easy up until now. The closest she came to relenting was a couple of years back when a polite and eager foreman from the mill had attempted to court her. In the end she’d refused him and he hadn’t persisted. He got married last year and moved away. Had a kid in the spring, last she heard.

But Javi is another thing entirely. A thing she can’t refuse, it seems. So lying in bed after her shift she indulges herself in reliving the night he drove her home. She knows it didn’t mean anything. Of course he would have helped any woman as he’d helped her. And the flirting, if that’s what it was, didn’t mean a damn thing either. He is surely just a natural flirt and taking him seriously would be a one way route to, at best, embarrassment and, at worst, pain. For Frances, anyway.

Even so, it’s been a long time since she has felt like this (has she ever?) and she has so little pleasure in her life that she doesn’t see the harm in resisting this feeling now. She can control it. It doesn’t have to mean anything. So she allows herself these quiet moments to contemplate his broad shoulders and imagine a world in which he flirts because he wants her to settle her face in the crook of his neck and taste the skin at the hollow of his throat. It doesn’t have to mean anything. No one has to know.

After a week filled with these daydreams she’d thought it might require at least some effort so keep them at bay when Javi next came to Harper’s. But the sight of him arriving with Marissa brought Frances quickly and firmly down to earth and in the end it was easy to present a sober exterior.

Javi stands at the counter, having just paid his check, when Billy approaches, spatula in hand, and says, “How do you do it, Javi?” 

“Do what?”

“The women.” He nods towards Marissa where she sits at a table, gathering herself to leave. “What’s your secret?”

Javi looks nonplussed. “I don’t have a secret.”

“Come on, it’s okay, you can tell me.” 

Javi shoots Frances a look, and she thinks she detects the tiniest ghost of a wink before he turns back to Billy. “Actually it’s the moustache.”

Billy touches his spatula to his chin and nods. “You know, I was thinking it might be that.”

“You should grow one, Billy. You’ll be fighting them off with a whip and a chair.”

Frances is struck by the mental image of a moustachioed Billy in a lion tamer’s outfit, holding a crowd of women at bay with a whip, and has to disguise a snort of laughter by faking a coughing fit.

But Javi keeps a straight face and says goodbye with a brisk nod to them both, before leaving with Marissa. 

***

Javi turns the glass in his hand, enjoying the way it feels. It’s a good glass with a thick base and he likes the solid weight of it. The smell of its contents is familiar and comforting. Woodsy, with a faint tang of phenol. He thinks about how appropriate it is that whiskey smells like medicine and his face twists into something that isn’t quite a smile. 

It’s been a quiet day. He spent it in the office catching up on paperwork. He hadn’t even remembered what day it was until he’d reached the _Date_ field on his first report and had to look at the calendar. There’d been a little tremor in his hand when he’d typed it out. And then he had to type it again and again. Over and over on every report he filed all day. The anniversary of something that never happened. Something he wants to forget. How long has it been now? He thinks of those lists. The first year is paper - he knows that, for some reason. After that, who the fuck knows? Lace? China? He wonders who thought this shit up. No one who’d ever left a good woman in a white dress standing outside a church on a hot September day, that’s for sure. 

He looks at the phone and considers making a call but he doesn’t feel fit to be around anyone. Not even someone who’s being paid to tolerate his company. But suddenly the silence of his apartment feels too loud and there’s a clawing feeling in his belly. He stands up and then sits down again, conflicted. And it occurs to him that if he went to the movie theatre he could sit there all night in the suspended reality that’s unique to such places, and it would be dark. And he could be alone but not alone. 

When he gets there he is powerfully relieved to see it is _Classic Movie Nite_. He doesn’t take in the title of the feature. It doesn’t matter. He marches to the teller, buys a ticket and shoves it straight in his pocket.

The film hasn’t started yet but the lights inside the theatre are already dim enough that he has to look carefully at his footing as he walks down the steps to choose his seat. When he’s about halfway down the aisle he lifts up his head, looks along a row to his left, and sees Frances. 

Something inspires her to turn her head towards him at the very same moment, and then they are looking at each other. Impossible to grant each other the privacy of pretending they haven’t noticed. It takes him a few seconds to understand why she looks different and then he realises that this is the first time he’s seen her out of her uniform. She looks more self-assured, somehow. It’s a look that he likes. 

She is sitting in the middle of a row, alone. He raises his hand - an acknowledgement rather than a wave, and she does the same. It seems like the right thing to say a few polite words and then go and sit some place where she can’t see him. So he sidesteps down the row to her seat.

Frances speaks first. “Didn’t peg you as a Frank Capra fan.” 

“What do you mean?”

“He directed the movie.” She jerks her head at the screen, but he still looks at her blankly. “You don’t know what movie is playing do you?” She’s not teasing him. She sounds curious more than anything else. 

Before he can answer, the room goes dark, a fanfare starts playing and a _Thank You For Not Smoking_ sign appears on the screen. He looks down the row to see that a family of four is settling into the seats near the aisle, blocking him in. They are all balancing huge containers of popcorn and soda. He turns to Frances and prepares to navigate the tricky process of edging past her so he can exit the row via the other side. But she is looking at him with an open expression, like she’s waiting for him to sit down next to her. So he does. 

The seat is narrower than he was expecting and that, combined with his broad shoulders, means they seem to be sitting impossibly close to one another. He takes off his jacket in an attempt to shed some bulk and it calls for some difficult manoeuvring in the cramped seat. He bumps into her a couple of times and mumbles an apology _like a nervous teenager, for God’s sake_. After that they both sit very still. 

A couple of commercials play and then she angles her head towards him and whispers, “It happened one night.” 

He whispers back, “What happened?”

“That’s the movie we’re watching. It Happened One Night.”

He looks at her with what he hopes is a dry smile. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” There’s a playful inflection in her voice and he likes it so much that he has to purse his lips to prevent a genuine smile from breaking out on his face. On any other day he might have allowed himself to succumb to it. 

The opening credits start to roll and the film has that silvery look that black and white movies had in the 1930s. Waltz-style orchestral music plays along with the credits. It sounds at once, grandly sweeping, scratchy with age, and quaintly old fashioned. The score has a cheerful melody, but maybe he’s just feeling that burst of optimism that always seems to accompany the first few minutes of any movie. 

Javi immediately feels slightly better, soothed by a sensation of being transported back in time. He slouches in his seat and wonders if he can let himself pretend for a couple of hours that he is a different person, living in another era. It feels like an indulgence he doesn’t deserve but he’s paid his two dollars and fifty cents and God knows his own life will still be waiting for him when the lights come up again. 

Following an incident where Javi accidentally lays his hand on top of Frances’s, causing her to flinch quite violently, they come to an arrangement where she has custody of the armrest and he tilts his body towards the empty seat to his right. And after a few minutes he grows relaxed enough to concentrate on the movie.

He’s surprised by how much he enjoys it. It turns out to be one of those screwball comedies where a roguish man spars with a confident woman until finally he realises he should quit pulling her pigtails and take her to bed. 

There are a few scenes that make Frances laugh, and sometimes she turns to him, looking to share the moment. He’s still not sufficiently distracted from his own troubles to laugh with her, but he smiles. And it’s a hell of a thing, given the circumstances, but eventually the genuine smile does break out. The one that he knows makes his dimple pop. The look on her face makes him think of the night he’d driven her home, when she’d been so loosened by brandy that she’d unselfconsciously laughed at her own joke about calling his mother. The memory is unexpectedly vivid. 

Javi shifts in his seat and thinks how nice it is that she has some moments of pleasure, despite the grind of her job and the worries she seems to carry around. He’s pleased for her. 

After about an hour, he is surprised by a sensation of pressure on his left side and looks down to see that Frances’s head is resting on his shoulder. 

Very slowly, and very carefully, he cranes his neck to look at her face, which is soft and peaceful with sleep. He wonders if he should make a subtle movement to rouse her, but he finds that he can’t quite bring himself to do so. It seems like a privilege to see her in this vulnerable and trusting state. And he can’t deny that the warm gentle weight of her head feels pleasant through the fabric of his shirt sleeve. 

He looks to his right and sees that the mother of the family of four is watching him and Frances with a fond smile. Of course. What a picture they must make. He breathes deeply, feeling almost suffocated by the irony of it all. That he, Javier Peña, who hasn’t been on anything resembling a date since he jilted his fiancée, and only came here tonight to distract himself from his own selfish pain over it, now looks like the very picture of a model boyfriend. 

Feeling curious, he leans into the persona, trying it on like a new coat. And for a moment he almost thinks it might fit. He knows he can provide a tired woman with a sturdy shoulder to sleep on in the movie theatre. He can offer her a steady arm to take as she walks the steps to the exit after the movie ends. And once back at home, he can certainly return her to a peaceful sleep in a haze of afterglow. But the thought of what comes after that, of being the permanent object of so much trust, has him mentally scrabbling for his old leather jacket.

The film has reached its climax and the actors’ raised voices cause Frances to stir a little. Javi braces himself for her waking up, but she shifts her weight towards him, snuggles closer, and links her arm into his, sort of hugging it. The weight of her body on his feels so nice that he suddenly longs to lift his arm and draw her properly against his chest. But he knows that would be a terrible mistake. Instead he allows his head to tilt down until his nose is barely touching her hair, so he can gently breathe in the scent of her. It’s a smell that he recognises; some combination of women’s shampoo and styling products. But beneath it there is something he doesn’t know. Something unique to her. And he lets himself imagine what it would be like to have that scent in his bed, to leave his sheets unwashed, and let it linger on his pillow for a few days.

But then he reminds himself that all women have their own pleasing smell and it’s only natural that he should have such thoughts about Frances on a night like this, when he is feeling raw and scraped open, and she is sleeping so prettily by his side. So he drags his focus back to the screen and distracts himself with the closing minutes of the film.

At last the film ends and the house lights switch on and then she does wake up. She quickly realises where she is, scrambles back into her own seat and clasps a hand over her mouth.

“Oh God! I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you wake me?”

“No, it’s fine. I usually insist that a woman at least buys me a drink before I let her sleep on me but I guess I can take a rain check.”

She looks horrified and he feels bad, thinks maybe he laid it on a bit thick. “Don’t worry about it, honey. Come on, let’s go.”

That seems to make her even more flustered and when they leave she forgets her bag, so Javi picks it up off the floor and silently hands it to her as they walk to the exit. 

They stand outside the movie theatre as the other patrons mill around them. 

“So, did you enjoy the movie?” 

“Yeah, it was--,” and then he notices her hair, how it’s slightly rumpled on one side, “not what I was expecting. But I liked it.”

She declines his offer of a ride home and he doesn’t insist this time. His presence seems to be giving her that old edginess and he doesn’t like it. He supposes that the thread of rapport that exists between them is a delicate one. Perhaps a walk alone in the cool air will repair it. He hopes that it will. 

So they say goodbye and Frances walks home, thinking how typical it is of her life that she got to lay her head on Javi’s shoulder, and yet she slept through the entire experience. 

***

Someone once asked Javi if he liked his job and he had to think for a full minute before answering that _he doesn’t know_. He realised then that he doesn’t do it because he likes it. He does it for the same reason that he breathes - he has no choice. 

Sometimes this feels like a curse, but his work does suit his personality. He likes the slow burn of an investigation, and the intensity when it reaches its climax. He’s been told that he takes it too personally - gets too invested. And he knows that’s true, but it’s not in his nature to behave in any other way, so he just leans into it. Most of the time his tenacity pays off and he’s rewarded with intoxifying hits of dopamine. But there are times when it doesn’t, and then he has to deal with the consequences. 

Tonight is one of those times. A badly bungled raid has left him exhausted and feeling like something brittle, liable to shatter at any moment. He should go home to bed but he knows he's gone beyond sleep. His mind is full of the kind of thoughts he doesn't want to be alone with. 

It's a hot night and the diner door is propped open so the bell doesn't ding when he walks in. He sees Frances sitting at the counter and, without thinking, takes a step back as he'd done one day last summer when he'd walked out into his Pop’s back yard at dawn to find a doe and her fawn breakfasting on fallen peaches. 

She hasn’t seen him yet. Her attention is focused on the open book in her lap. One foot is resting on the stool in front of her and the other is swinging gently in its tattered sneaker. Her elbow is on the counter, her head is propped on her hand and her features are arranged in an expression of quiet pleasure. 

He should go home. Let Frances have her peace and her book. But the tranquillity around her drags him into her orbit and he walks further into the diner, deliberately letting his feet fall heavy on the floor so as not to startle her. 

She looks up. “Oh, sorry. Do you want coffee?” She lifts her foot off the stool, ready to stand.

“No, it’s okay.” He raises a placating hand. “I’m not staying. I was just passing by. On my way home. Just wanted to, uh--,” he trails off, frowning softly.

On seeing he’s unable to continue she comes to his rescue by holding up her book. “You should read this one. The Last Picture Show is good, but this is better.” 

It’s a library book, an old one. Its plastic sleeve is yellowed and cracked. The title on the cover is unfamiliar to him; _Precious Bane_. 

“Looks like you’ve only just started it.” He nods to where her thumb holds her place open. “It’s that good already?” 

“I’ve read it before. A few times actually. I really want to get my own copy but it’s out of print.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s about a girl who-- well, I guess she realises that something she thought was her curse is actually her salvation.”

He nods, absorbing this.

“You like to read?” she asks.

“Yeah, I used to. Not much time for it anymore though. I left a bunch of those old hard-boiled detective stories in a box somewhere at my Pop’s place. Know the kind I mean?”

“Yeah I know the kind,” she says. “Bourbon-soaked investigators and the dames who love to hate them?”

There’s a knowing look in her eye, like she’s got his number, and he can’t help the smile he gives her as he says, “That’s right. I was obsessed when I was in high school. All the local used book stores got sick of the sight of me. What a fuckin’ dork.”

“Hey, there’s a lot worse things to be than a dork you know.”

 _Yes, he does know_. In a gesture that he hopes she’ll interpret as exhaustion, he rubs his face. He needs to hide it from her for a moment _._

“Time for me to head home. I’ll leave you to your book.”

“No, don’t leave. I mean-- you don’t need to leave. Unless you want to.”

“It’s okay, I’m beat. I’ll see you, Frances.”

But when he reaches the door he turns around and she looks at him with an expression he can’t immediately process. When eventually he recognises it as concern, he is shocked to feel tears pricking the corners of his eyes.

He clears his throat. “Hey, what was the name of that book? Would you write it down for me?”

“Of course, Javi.” She smiles at him. Then she pulls her notepad out of her apron and writes it out while he comes back and stands by her side. When she hands him the paper, her fingertips brush against his and he smothers a powerful urge to lift her hand to his face and lean into its soft warmth.

***

He finds that he likes her serious voice and her comforting habit of never asking him whether he’s had a good day. He usually hasn’t. So during the late nights of September he sits at the counter and instigates quiet conversations punctuated by long, comfortable silences. His visits with her have become something he thinks about during the day and he finds himself planning his schedule around them. He tries not to think about what this means.

He's learned that she grew up in coal country, and, while she didn't use the word poverty, her descriptions of her childhood suggested something very close. As a child she inherited a small collection of books from an aunt. Mostly cowboy stories, some classics, a few golden age crime novels, and she read them all over a single summer, having little else to do. He asked her once about the ex she mentioned, Joe. But she went quiet and a little line of worry appeared on her brow so he hasn’t brought it up again.

He’s told her about his childhood. Summers on his Pop's ranch and term times at his mom's place in urban Laredo. And she seems to enjoy hearing about his daily life. The elderly widow in the apartment next to his who brought him a pot roast after he fixed a leak under her sink. He tells her stories about the people he works with. 

He can tell she especially likes it when he talks about the things he thinks and feels. So he tries to give her that as much as he can. But she doesn’t seem to mind when sometimes he has to be quiet for a while. And over the next few weeks they continue spinning their thread together until one night they have enough to fashion it into something of substance. Something that feels like intimacy.

Frances notices him sitting alone in a booth. Thinks it’s strange that he slipped in without saying hello, but then she sees the expression on his face.

“Shall I get Billy’s brandy?”

He looks up at her and his eyes are awful; haunted and hopeless.

“It’s alright,” she says. “I’ll go get it.”

She returns with the bottle and a glass. He pours himself a drink and is silent for a long time.

“Should I leave you? Do you want to be alone?” she asks.

He frowns, then drags a hand over his brow and down the side of his face. Looks around the almost empty diner and nods to the seat opposite him. Then, almost a whisper, “Sit with me?”

She does.

“I fucked up.” His voice is like gravel. “A man got hurt because of me. A friend.”

“Oh Javi. I’m so sorry.”

A flicker of surprise passes over his face, as though this was the last thing he expected to hear. Is he so unused to sympathy? Or was he expecting her to tell him he is blameless and belittle his sorrow with some banal platitude?

“Do you ever feel like you want to disappear?” he asks. “Like you don’t want to be in your own fucking skin any more?”

“Every damn day.”

And with the wretched look on his face, with understanding something of what he’s feeling, it’s all she can do to resist reaching out and touching his hand as it’s wrapped around his glass. Or standing up to hold his head to her breast like she would a heartbroken child. 

“Have you ever been married?” he asks. 

“I was engaged,” she shakes her head slowly, “can you imagine? That guy Joe. I don’t know why he asked me. I should never have accepted.”

“Why did you?”

“I don’t know, I-- it seemed like my best chance. I was kind of inexperienced when I met him. In the place where I grew up if you’re seen reading anything other than the bible you’re considered an oddity. Factor in my sunny demeanour and the boys don’t come lining up.”

She pauses and looks across the room. She's never said this to anyone else. “I don’t think I ever learned what it should feel like with a man. You know-- when it’s right.”

“How did it feel? With him.”

She takes a breath as though to speak but then releases it. Javi waits her out though, and finally she settles on something bland. “Disappointing. But it took a long time for me to understand what that meant. And by then I was scared to be by myself again. I'm ashamed. It's a terrible reason to be with someone. I put up with a lot of shit from him because of it. I guess I got what I deserved.”

“How did it end?”

“With me realising that I was more lonely when I was with him than when I was alone.”

“Are you lonely now?”

“I don’t ask myself questions like that. Neither should you. Look, maybe I'm not the happiest person in the world. Who is?”

He shrugs. “Sounds like Shelby’s cousin’s doing okay.” He sips his drink, keeping his eyes on her. Then he says, softer now, “You thought any more about that?”

She doesn’t answer him. She can’t trust her voice not to fracture. 

“Maybe you don’t need to be alone,” he says, “maybe-”

She cuts him off. “Maybe what? Maybe I should go and live happily ever after with the professor and his damn stock portfolio?”

A look she’s never seen before passes over his face but he blinks it away. “Is that what you want? You don't think there might be any other options?” 

“When I was a little girl I used to think that something was coming. Something that might be worth waiting for. It was the only way I could keep going.”

“You don't think that any more?”

“Now the only way I can keep going is to expect nothing. Wanting things just leads to more disappointment and there’s only so much of that a person can take before they break from it.”

Her words have a sense of finality. As though she wants to change the subject away from herself.

“I came close to getting married one time,” he says. “Didn’t work out though.”

“What happened?”

“I didn't make it to the church.”

“Oh.”

He looks into his glass with a tight lipped smile. “Trust me, she’s better off. Since then I try to play to my strengths.”

“Like making sure everyone has a good time?”

“Something like that. It’s easier to do that when the other person doesn’t have to wake up and live with all my bullshit the morning after.”

“You’re a romantic, then? Good times only, don’t let anyone see the bullshit. No one gets disappointed.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever been described as a romantic, but when you put it like that…”

“Well, maybe one of these days you’ll meet someone who wants to live with your bullshit.”

“Yeah.” He lights another cigarette and exhales. “Maybe.”

***

Later that night he wakes with a gasp. He sits up, blinking away the fragments of a nightmare. A burst of gunfire. Familiar voices shouting in panic behind doors he can’t open. A gun in his hand that’s empty of ammunition, the trigger clicking uselessly. The inescapable dread that exists only in dreams. And guilt. Always guilt, everlasting and depressingly familiar. 

Returning to consciousness, he realises he is sweating and kicks away the sheets. He gets up, paces to the bathroom and slaps on the light switch. Bracing his long arms on the edge of the sink he breathes deeply and feels his muscles flexing, his physicality bringing him back to himself. The harsh light helps. He splashes cold water on his face and that helps, too. He finds his cigarettes and smokes one and then another, standing at his bedroom window. Then he gets back into bed. 

Searching for something real and solid he thinks of Frances. He lets himself visualise her face, and the line of worry on her forehead that he wants to smooth away with a kiss. He remembers the smell of her hair. He thinks of the planes of her body that he wants to stroke and soothe. To feel her, vital and alive under his hands. He’s half hard now and squashes down another flash of guilt. He wants to make her come. To give that to her. 

Her mouth is close to his ear, whispering, _I like that, Javi. I like the way you touch me_. Her fingers brushing his cock. Then her soft heat, pulsing around him as she comes. He reaches down and takes hold of himself in his fist.

***

He avoids Harper’s for the next month. He gets drunk every night. He works a lot and forgets to eat, and he thinks about Frances every day. 

He still saves up stories to take to the late night conversations they no longer have. He misses her easy company and the way she trusted him with her secrets and her thoughts. And he can’t forget how easy it felt to reveal himself to her. To let her see him. 

He wonders if she is okay. He hopes he hasn’t hurt her by disappearing. But there are shameful moments when he allows himself to selfishly hope that she misses him too. 

He thinks constantly about the last time he saw her. When he’d suggested that she didn’t need to be alone and she had shut him down so rapidly, and how it had felt like a rejection. Sometimes he wonders if she’s just afraid, like he is, and he almost pulls on his jacket and goes out to look for her. But then he remembers that she has good reason to be afraid of him and he pours another drink. 

But no matter how drunk he gets, he can’t deny the truth. That he loved the look on her face when she saw him walk through the door each night. He loved the intimacy that had grown between them, all the more precious for how hard-won it was. He craves the smell of her hair and the feel of her, contentedly sleeping, on his shoulder. He wants to know how her bare skin feels against his own, and to learn how she likes to be touched. He wants to be the man who holds up a mirror to her beauty and watches her blossom at the sight of it.

He knows he has been holding these feelings close to himself for a long time. He’s tried to drive them away, but he can’t. And he knows what this means. 

When finally he returns to Harper’s, it’s busy. As busy as it ever gets during the night hours, anyway. Javi stands in the doorway searching for her among the bodies until Billy notices him. “Hey Javi, where have you been, man? Are you looking for Frances? She’s not working tonight. Swapped with Maria.”

Billy puts a couple of plates on the pickup counter and rings the service bell. “Maria! Where’s Frances tonight?”

Maria is clearing a table nearby. “She’s got a date. Some guy Shelby set her up with. A second date, actually.” She straightens up, a delighted smile wrinkling her nose. “Isn’t that great? It’s about time someone treated her nice.”

“Yeah. It is,” says Javi, absently. He’s distracted by a loud buzzing in his ears.

“You want me to tell her you were asking for her?”

“No. No, don’t do that. I’ll stop by next week.”

“Sure. Oh, not Thursday though. It’ll be me here that night. He’s taking her out again. Second date not over and the third one already set. This guy’s a keen one.”

Javi walks home, staring blindly at the sidewalk.

  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter has taken so long. Thank you for sticking with me, and for the lovely comments - they really helped me to keep going and get this chapter finished.

She wakes up to the sound of someone announcing the weather in a voice which is far too cheerful for her to tolerate. She rolls over in bed, slaps the snooze button on her radio and casts about her mind for the source of her unhappiness. It’s a sombre way to start the day but she’s learned to make a habit of it. Better than letting it ambush her later, while she’s going about her business with all the unguarded complacency of someone who’s forgotten that _he has gone_. 

She closes her eyes. She remembers. Javi holding his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. The crooked tooth in his lower jaw that sits almost completely in front of its neighbour. Javi frowning with careful attention while she talked about things that would have bored anyone else. Her aching back. Her dreams. Her upstairs neighbour’s piano practise that messes with her sleep now she’s on nights.

_Want me to come over and break his fingers for you?_

She remembers the stubble growing patchily over his jaw while he sat at the counter fighting off sleep instead of going home to his bed and his razor. She remembers the night she turned around from washing out the coffee pot to find him slumped over in a sleepy heap on the counter. Instinctively knowing he’d hate to fall asleep in a public place, she’d gone straight to his side and brought him awake, her hesitant tap interrupting the slow rise and fall of his shoulders which had felt impossibly warm and firm beneath her fingers. How she’d ached to fit herself against the broad expanse of his back, breathe in the scent of his nape and take refuge in the rhythm of his body. 

He’d woken up to see her standing over him, holding the empty pot and god only knows what kind of expression had been on her face.

_Sorry. How long was I out?_

_Only a minute._ She’d turned away before her face betrayed her. _Go home. Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow._

It’s painful to dwell on such things, to will him to live bright and vivid in her memory like this. But she does it anyway because with every day that passes it’s becoming harder to believe he was real instead of some fantasy she created to soften the long lonely nights, or a recurring dream she used to have.

Sitting up in bed, she covers her face with her hands and breathes deeply, steeling herself for what she’s about to do. After a few breaths she lifts the phone from her nightstand and places it in her lap. She fingers the cord for a few seconds, lifts the receiver and dials three numbers.

“Information, what name please?”

“Peña. First name’s Javi-- Javier.” 

“I’m sorry, that number is unlisted.”

“Oh.”

“Thank you, goodb--,” 

“Wait, please. Could I have the DEA office?”

“Yes, I have a number. Are you ready?”

She’s unprepared and has to scrabble among the contents of her nightstand drawer for a pen and an old receipt. 

She stares at the number.

Calling a boy. It’s the kind of thing other girls did. Popular girls with powder blue princess phones in their bedrooms. Nice girls from good families with phones that worked because they paid the Final Notice from the phone company instead of throwing it in the wood stove and claiming it never showed up. 

“God damn it.” 

She dials the numbers quickly, before she can change her mind. But as she listens to the ring tone she realises she has no idea what she’ll say to him. She imagines his voice, halting and hesitant with confusion because the waitress from his local diner is calling him at work. He’ll be kind, of course, like he always is. He’ll make some polite conversation and then he’ll hang up and shrug at his nearest coworker, _I think she’s got a thing for me._

__Of course. She’s misread the whole thing._ _

__After all, if she were a legitimate part of his life wouldn’t he have warned her of his absence in advance? Wouldn’t she have his unlisted phone number in her address book? And wouldn’t hers appear in his? Something to mark her out as a person of significance in his life. Someone who should be informed about a surprise birthday party, say. Or hospital visiting hours. A funeral._ _

__She drops the handset back in its cradle, her hand shaking as she imagines Javi’s broken body in a hospital bed surrounded by terrifying medical machinery and the worried faces of coworkers and family, none of whom even knows she exists._ _

__***_ _

__“Are you okay? Billy told me everything.”_ _

__Over Justine’s shoulder, Frances gives Billy a meaningful look which he returns, unrepentant._ _

__“I’m fine. How was your first day back?”_ _

__Justine ignores the question and holds Frances at arm’s length, assessing her like a doctor about to arrive at a diagnosis._ _

__“You look like you’ve been chewed up and spat out.”_ _

__“Good God, Justine!” Frances pulls away and goes to the locker room._ _

__Justine calls after her, “Hey it ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of.” She turns to Ida who’s visiting from the laundromat. “Javier’s a hard man to resist.”_ _

__Ida replies in a voice coarsened to a scratchy whisper after 55 years on two packs of Luckies a day, “That boy with the jeans?” She blows out her smoke. “I thought my machines’d shrunk ‘em. Offered to give him a refund but he wouldn’t take it. Just thanked me all polite and asked me to wash ‘em on the extra hot cycle next time.” She shakes her head. “Wouldn’t’ve done it if I’d known it was gonna get Frances all riled up like this.”_ _

__“Well I don’t think it was just the jeans that done it, Ida,” Justine says._ _

__Ida tilts her head, conceding the point. “Probably not. He’s _awful_ polite, too.”_ _

__“He is,” Justine agrees._ _

__Ida takes the last bite of her donut. “That’ll do it.”_ _

__It’s unclear whether Ida’s referring to the quality of the donut or the lethal combination of good manners and tight jeans on a man, but Justine lets the matter rest because Frances is returning from the locker room and Ida is gathering her walking sticks. She says her goodbyes and shuffles out and Justine turns to Frances with an air of getting down to business._ _

__“Didn’t you ever let him know you were interested?”_ _

__“I might. If I _had_ been interested. But I was not. We were friends is all. Least I thought we were.” _ _

__Justine’s seen enough heartbreak to know this is a lie._ _

__“Billy says Javier stopped bringing those girls in here. Maybe he was interested, too. Did you try flirting with him?”_ _

__“I don’t know how to flirt.”_ _

__“I know you don’t,” Justine says kindly. “Well, the next time you see him, give it a try and see what happens.” She leans into Frances, a playful bump. “He’ll love it.”_ _

__Frances makes a petulant noise. “I don’t think I’m his type.”_ _

__“You’re exactly Javier’s type! You’re smart and independent and—”_ _

__“Well why didn’t he… you know,” she swirls her hand vaguely and lowers her voice, “make a move on me?”_ _

“Because everything about you positively screams _‘leave me alone’_. And I’ll say one thing for Javier, he’s no dummy. If you’re giving him those vibes he’s gonna notice.” 

__Frances picks at the fraying hem of her apron. “You know, I tried calling him at his work but I couldn’t go through with it.”_ _

__“Hold on a minute. He told you where he works?” Justine turns to address the room, appealing for a witness. “He told her where he works and she thinks he ain’t interested!”_ _

__“Keep your voice down, please. It didn’t mean anything. Even if it did, it’s too late now. He’s probably met someone.”_ _

__Her stoicism breaks at the thought of it. Javi, too much absorbed in the blind elation of new love to leave his bed. She slumps on to a stool, covers her face shakily. “Oh God… I’m so messed up. I wish I’d never met him.”_ _

__“Oh shush now, you don’t mean that. You’re gonna get through this. You just need a little distraction.”_ _

__“I’m not going line dancing with you so please don’t start that again.”_ _

__“I’m not talking about line dancing.”_ _

__“What then?”_ _

__“Well, you ain’t gonna believe this but Shelby stopped by today and—”_ _

__“Uh uh, no way.”_ _

__“Oh hell, no one’s askin’ you to get married. Just one date, for God’s sake! Why won’t you let someone be good to you, Frances?”_ _

__Justine doesn’t press her for an answer, which is good because she doesn’t have one. But she visits Shelby the next day and it feels like collecting a prescription to cure some kind of sickness._ _

__***_ _

__One week, and two dates later, Frances is leaning her elbows on the counter and wondering whether she remembered to shut her bedroom window. The temperature’s dropped and dust has been swirling in through the diner door all night. The air feels hazy and oddly charged. She straightens up and stretches. “I think there’s going to be Weather, Billy.”_ _

__The door swings open and Javi hustles inside with a strange woman, both of them looking down, brushing dust from their clothes. When Javi glances up and sees her he’s stricken still and they stare at each other for a long moment._ _

__He looks thinner. There’s something extra in the sharpness of his cheekbones. His eyes look very black. And his hair’s grown longer and it’s covering his forehead. Dark shiny locks swept forward by the wind._ _

__Frances’s eyes flick to the woman and then back to Javi. It’s a question she knows she has no right to ask but she can’t help it. His jaw gives a tiny hitch._ _

__The woman’s making her way to a table by the window. “Here okay, Javi?”_ _

__He exhales heavily and there’s the shadow of a pleading look in his eyes as he turns away to pull out a chair for her. When he sits down she leans forward and brushes his hair away from his forehead. Frances feels sick._ _

__She tries not to look while they study their menus but the sight of them together in their easy intimacy is like a mouth ulcer she feels compelled to prod with her tongue. Checking it and testing it. Is it still there? Does it still hurt?_ _

__“Want me to take the order?” asks Billy gently._ _

__She shakes her head. “I can do it.” She walks briskly to their table. “What can I get you folks?” The professional waitress now. Employing the neutral efficiency she reserves for strangers._ _

__“It’s Thursday,” says Javi._ _

__“Oh is there a special on Thursdays?” asks the woman, scanning the menu._ _

__“No,” says Frances._ _

__“I didn’t think you’d be here tonight,” says Javi._ _

__“That why you chose tonight to finally show up?”_ _

__The woman sets down the menu, too much taken aback by this small drama._ _

__Javi ignores the jab and turns his body towards Frances. Perching on the edge of his chair, he questions her again and there’s an edge to his voice now, like he needs to get the bottom of this._ _

__“Maria said you had a date. What happ—”_ _

__Frances cuts him off. “Got rescheduled.”_ _

__“Oh.”_ _

__“Coffee for you, sir?”_ _

__He looks like he’s been slapped in the face._ _

__“Yeah. Thanks,” he murmurs, and turns to lean back in his seat._ _

__“You’re welcome.” She starts to walk away but the woman calls her back, almost apologetically, and orders some food. She’s beautifully dressed in black garments, cut simply. Her hair is pulled back into an immaculate bun. She might be a dancer, Frances thinks. Or a designer of clothes or interiors. She looks comically misplaced here, against the yellowing table tops and the peeling paint on the wall behind her._ _

__While Billy starts the order, Frances stares hopefully at the door, willing another customer to come in and give her something else to look at. No one does, though, so she carries on glancing, prodding, searching for clues to decipher the nature of their relationship. But with Javi’s back to her, there’s little to go on. She can see the woman’s face, but her expressions are economical and reveal nothing and there are no more casual touches between them. No obvious displays of affection._ _

__Probably he’s asked her to tone it down out of kindness for the waitress whom he suspects has a crush on him, which is somehow far worse._ _

__When she’s done eating, Javi hands her his keys and she leaves the diner to sit in the passenger seat of his car across the street. On her way out she flashes Frances a sympathetic look that causes something to twist horribly in her gut. Humiliation, maybe. Or shame._ _

__“I’m sorry,” he says, approaching her slowly._ _

__She picks up a cloth and starts wiping the counter. “I don’t know why you think you need to avoid me just cause you have a girlfriend.”_ _

__His eyes go wide. “I don’t!”_ _

__“Good, then,” she says, rubbing hard at an imaginary patch of dirt on the Formica. “She seems real nice. You should bring her in again.”_ _

__He plants his hands on his hips and bows his head, tastes his lower lip._ _

__“What’s this guy like?” he asks quietly._ _

__“He’s great. His name’s Brian. He’s making me dinner this weekend.”_ _

__Javi pats his hands over his leather jacket, pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and drops it on the floor. She watches him retrieve it and light up, his cheeks hollowing as he takes a long hard drag. His hand is shaking._ _

__“Are you okay?”_ _

__He rubs the base of his thumb against his forehead. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around. I just, I had to be somewhere else for a while.”_ _

__“It’s okay. I get it.” she says quickly. Doesn’t want to hear the details. “But… your job, Javi. You can’t disappear like that,” she drops to a whisper to disguise her shaky voice, “you know where to find me but I—” she trails off, unable to speak the words._ _

“Oh. Hey, come on, it’s okay,” he says gently. “You don’t need to worry about me.” He’s walking towards her but she picks up her cloth again and shakes her head quickly, tightly. _Don’t make a fuss_. 

__He returns to the table he’d shared with the woman, writes something on the check and holds it up to show her._ _

__“My address,” he says. “And my numbers. Work and home. I’ll just leave it here.” He drops it on the table with some bills._ _

__She watches him as he leaves and crosses the street, skirting a vortex of dust to reach his car and the waiting woman._ _

__***_ _

__Javi has some vacation days in hand so he takes a few days off and drives out to his Pop’s ranch. It’s a short visit but he gives himself over to the rhythms and routines of the place and finds some comfort in them._ _

__He wakes up early every day and takes his coffee outside to watch the sun rise. The sky here seems somehow bigger and he likes the way it feels to stand beneath it in the quiet potential of the dawn. To stand still. He’ll inherit this ranch one day. Up until now he’s assumed he’ll sell it when that day comes. But maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll quit the DEA. Move out here and husband the land and the animals, and a woman, too, perhaps._ _

__When the sun’s fully up he rides out on his favourite horse, a beautiful palomino quarter horse mare. She’s a good girl, attentive to him even on a loose rein and he takes her along the river, cuing her softly with his body and gentling her with his voice._ _

__When she’d first arrived at the ranch she’d been so high strung no one could get near her. Chucho didn’t hold with rough horse breaking and he made up his mind to sell her, but Javi persuaded his father to let him try._ _

__Javi led her out to the round pen and let her alone while he sat in the dirt and ignored her. He read his book and the sceptical horse watched him from the far side of the pen. After a couple of weeks of this, she started to drift closer. Sometimes Javi would speak to her; soft wordless sounds that she seemed to understand, and she’d make little noises back at him like they were consoling one another on the awfulness of the world. Finally she came almost close enough to touch, only to bolt when Javi lifted his arm. But the next day at dusk, under rose lit clouds, she came back to him. And this time she stayed. She panicked when he first touched his broad hand to her neck, but Javi told her how brave she was and breathed shushes and nonsense into her twitching ear until at last she settled. He spent the next two months training her to be the best worker on the ranch. Chucho had let Javi name her and he’d chosen _La Reine_. The Queen._ _

__He spends his afternoons working. He helps move the herd and he chops firewood. He grooms La Reine and he fixes fences and cleans equipment. When he runs out of work he finds Miguel, the foreman, and asks for more._ _

__He likes this, working in synergy with the land and his horse. Using his clever hands to mend and build. He likes the taste of a cold beer, well earned, drunk while the breeze cools the sweat dampened skin of his bare chest._ _

__His body’s growing stronger, and he’s smoking less - mostly because his hands are so busy all the time. But his mind’s sharper for it and he feels a sense of clarity that wasn’t there before._ _

__Maybe he’ll never have her, and that’s something he’ll just have to live with. As an abstract concept it brings him an unexpected sort of peace._ _

__But Saturday night is a different matter. Because that’s when he imagines she has her dinner date. It’s when a man is welcoming her into his home and pouring her a glass of wine from a bottle chosen to match the meal he’s preparing. Frances is relaxed and talkative in his company, just as she’d once been with Javi. And they’re laughing and she’s lit up with a glow that comes from being with a man who’s not afraid to love her._ _

__“I won’t ask what you’re thinking because I know you won’t tell me.” Chucho sets a bottle and a couple of glasses on the porch table and eases himself into a chair next to his son. “But the last time I saw that look on your face it was a woman that put it there.”_ _

__Javi’s unsurprised that his Pop can read his thoughts so easily. He’s the only one who ever could._ _

__“Does she know how you feel about her?”_ _

__“No.” Javi pours out a few fingers of tequila and drinks it down. “Think I missed my chance.”_ _

__“She married?”_ _

__He shakes his head. “Nope. But she’s got a— she’s got someone.”_ _

__Chucho grunts. “Something made you shy all of a sudden?”_ _

__“She’s had a hard time.” He frowns into his empty glass like he can’t remember how it got like that. Puts it back on the table and pushes it away. “This guy might be good for her. I don’t want to screw that up.”_ _

__“You don’t get to decide what’s good for her, Javier. You have to let folks have to do that for themselves. And you have to trust them.”_ _

__Javi scrubs his hand over his brow and lets his head roll back. He can tell from the set of Chucho’s jaw that he’s about to say something Javi won’t like._ _

__“You thought you could decide for Lorraine. Don’t make that mistake again.”_ _

__“Pop—”_ _

__“Alright,” he says, holding up a hand. “But tell me something, how does this woman feel about you?”_ _

__The corner of his mouth ticks up. A humourless smile. “I don’t know.”_ _

__***_ _

__“Javi, you’re bleeding!”_ _

__He thought it had stopped in the car, but he touches at his cheekbone now and sees the blood on his fingertips. “It’s nothing, Frances. Don’t worry about it.” He grabs a handful of napkins from the table nearest the door and presses them to his face. They bloom red as he walks to the counter._ _

__“Hey Billy, will you fix me one of your steak sandwiches?”_ _

__“Some lady’s old man finally caught up with you, huh?” says Billy, as he tosses the meat on the grill._ _

__“Yeah, yeah.”_ _

__“How was your weekend?”_ _

__“Good. Spent some time with my dad. You?”_ _

__“What the hell is wrong with you two?” says Frances._ _

__“He’s fine,” says Billy._ _

__“I’m fine,” says Javi._ _

__“You’re not fine. You’re bleeding. And look! It’s dripping on the counter.”_ _

__He steps back and she hurries around to him._ _

__“There’s a first aid kit in the back. Come with me, please.”_ _

__She’s already walking to the locker room before he can refuse her help. There’ll be less of a scene if he lets her do what she feels is necessary, so he follows her._ _

__She directs him to sit on the bench and he feels a sharp pang of guilt at the way her eyes anxiously sweep over his body._ _

__He makes his voice soft. “I’m okay. I’ve had worse.”_ _

__“I don’t doubt it and I’d rather not think about that right now,” she tells him. “Let me see?”_ _

__He takes the bloody napkin away and she leans in close to squint at his cheek._ _

__“God, it’s really swelling up,” she says._ _

__He can feel her breath on his skin, sweet and fresh like the peppermints that fill the glass bowl by the cash register._ _

__“Did you get hit anywhere else?” she asks._ _

__But he can only make a wordless negative noise because he’s distracted by her mouth which is dangerously close to his. It would require only the smallest tilt of his face to kiss her._ _

__Fighting an instinct to close his eyes, to hide, he looks into hers, willing her to look back and read his thoughts. To know, at last, that he wants her._ _

__But her attention is elsewhere._ _

__Her cool fingertips are brushing his hair back and tracing delicate lines over his heated skin as she checks for more swelling and he thinks he’d happily let himself get punched in the face every day of his life just to have her this close._ _

__Javi knows how to read people but she’s always been the exception and he can’t explain why. Maybe his own feelings have too much leverage over him and it’s thrown him off his game. Maybe he’s losing his touch._ _

__But with the way she’s leaning over him he can see the sweep of her collarbone and more of her bare skin than he’s seen before. And yes, the rise and fall of her chest is a little too rapid. Her breaths are audibly roughened. It’s probably just the shock of seeing him injured, he thinks guiltily. He should have known better than to let her see him like this so soon after his disappearance._ _

__But maybe it’s something else. Because her hands are lingering on his jaw, holding it like a lover about to lean in for a kiss, and then he feels it; the tiny back and forth movement of her thumb over his skin._ _

__His eyes snap up to hers._ _

__And now she is looking at him. And he’s looking back._ _

He tries to tell her yes with his eyes. _You can do it, honey. If you want._ If she were any other woman, he’d know. He’d know if she were waiting for him to slide his bruised knuckles into her hair, position her mouth where he wants it and kiss her soundly. 

__But the look in her eyes is impossible to read and these stakes are too high for such a risky move. So he holds her gaze until she blinks and releases his face, her fingertips dragging slowly over his stubble, like she’s reluctant to let go._ _

__She looks down at his hands and her brows draw together when she sees them, red and swollen._ _

__“Wait here. I’ll go get some ice.”_ _

__He looks around the room. There isn’t much to see. A small table holding a coffee cup and a copy of MAD Magazine - Billy’s, he supposes. Then there’s just the bench he’s sitting on and a row of lockers. One of them is slightly ajar and its padlock is hanging open. The padlock he’d picked for her on the night of the drunk. It feels like a lifetime ago. He sighs heavy at the memory and lets his head tip back against the wall. “Fuck me.”_ _

__His gaze lands on a box that’s sitting on top of the lockers. It’s covered with Christmas gift wrap and trimmed with silver tinsel. Someone’s written on the side with a black Sharpie but he can’t make out the words. He’s tired and his eyesight isn’t up to much at the best of times._ _

__Frances returns and Javi straightens up and lets her place the ice pack over his hands._ _

__“S’nice,” he breathes. He closes his eyes. Feeling bruised inside and out now, he’s content to surrender to her care._ _

__She sets to work on his wound, which he knows is deep enough to need stitches. It should hurt like hell when she cleans it but he doesn’t feel a thing because the nearness of her is causing blissful quantities of dopamine to flood his brain. He can smell her hair and he’s suddenly back in the movie theatre with the phantom pressure of her weary head on his shoulder. He can feel the weight of it still. Like a long lost limb that his brain refuses to give up on._ _

__Once she’s satisfied the cut is properly clean she sits next to him and holds a sterile pad against it._ _

__“What the hell happened?” she asks._ _

__“I walked by a convenience store in the middle of a hold-up.”_ _

__“And you just decided to go in and be the hero all by yourself?”_ _

__“Yes.”_ _

__“Is that supposed to impress me?”_ _

__“What can I say? I’m an impressive guy.”_ _

__“This is serious. You could have been killed.”_ _

__“It was just a couple of kids. They didn’t even have a real gun. Feel better now?”_ _

__“Did you know it was a fake gun before you went in there?”_ _

__He sighs. “No, I didn’t.”_ _

__“Then I don’t.”_ _

__She gingerly pulls the pad away. “I think the bleeding’s stopped. If it starts again you’re to go straight to the emergency room and get it stitched. Understood?”_ _

__He makes his voice agency-brisk. “Yes ma’am.”_ _

__She’s trying not to smile but it doesn’t really work._ _

__“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to sass your waitress, Agent Peña?”_ _

__“Yeah, but I happen to like spit in my food.”_ _

__She laughs at that._ _

__“I like that, too,” he says._ _

__“What do you mean?”_ _

__“I like hearing you laugh.”_ _

__“And here I’ve been all this time, dying to laugh at you but holding it in. Sure wish I’d known sooner.”_ _

__“Well, now you do,” he says. And then he leans a little closer, like he’s sharing a secret. “I think you should be thanking me for coming in here with a busted face so we could finally get all our cards on the table.”_ _

__“All of them?”_ _

__“What are you hiding one up your sleeve?” He ducks his head as though to look up the short sleeve of her uniform._ _

__She laughs, delighted, and jerks away. “Well, I’m not showing you now.”_ _

__“That’s a pity,” he says. Then another secret, “Maybe you’ll show me some other time.”_ _

__She doesn’t answer that but she’s smiling at him, and it’s mostly in her eyes which are warmer and brighter than he’s ever seen. He wants to stay with her here. To bask in her glow for as long as she’ll let him._ _

__“Can I smoke in here?” he asks._ _

__“Yeah but you should keep that ice on your hands a while longer,” she tells him. “Where are your cigarettes?”_ _

__He nods at his chest and pulls up an eyebrow._ _

__She fixes him with a defiant look that he’s never seen before and searches his inside pocket while he mutters something about being molested._ _

__“Oh quiet,” she says, pulling out his Bic and his Marlboros. She puts a cigarette between her lips, lights it, and coughs violently into the crook of her arm._ _

__“Okay there?”_ _

__“Yeah,” she grits out, “not a smoker,” and coughs again._ _

__“Jesus, put that fuckin’ thing in my mouth before you choke to death.”_ _

__“Right,” she says, gathering herself. After some more coughing, she places it carefully between his lips. He’s expecting her to leave it there for him to grip between his teeth like he does when he’s typing his reports at work and blowing smoke out of his nose. But she lets her fingers hover around the cigarette and waits for him to take his drag, before removing it for him to exhale._ _

__They repeat the manoeuvre a few more times in silence. It’s not entirely necessary but he can’t say he minds. It’s curiously intimate and he likes the way her eyes fixate on his lips each time they close around the tip._ _

__“Javi?”_ _

__He turns away and exhales his smoke. Turns back. “Yeah?”_ _

__“I’m glad you’re back.” She purses her lips, frowning, like she’s psyching herself up for something. “And I’m sorry I got mad last week. When you were here. I just— ”_ _

__The worry line is back on her forehead and he can’t stand it. Not after seeing her so full of easy confidence. Not after the thread between them seems finally to be fixed, and stronger than ever._ _

__“I’m not sleeping with her,” he interrupts._ _

__She looks at him for a beat. “Why are you telling me that?” she asks softly._ _

__“Because I want you to know.”_ _

__He lets that hang in the air for a few seconds and tries to read her face. But she offers him another drag and he has to turn away to exhale and then the moment’s gone._ _

“How was your date with Bert?” 

__“Hm? Oh, you mean Brian? He made Chicken Kiev. It was good,” she says vaguely._ _

_The chicken or the date?_ “He treating you okay?” 

__

__

__“Yeah.” She shifts in her seat. “Sure, Javi. He’s a nice guy.”_ _

__“Would you tell me if he wasn’t? Would you tell _him_? I’m asking because you just apologised to me after _I_ was the asshole.”_ _

__She slumps against the wall and studies the cigarette, turning it slowly between her thumb and index finger._ _

__He gently nudges his knee against hers._ _

__“You gonna let me finish that?” he nods at the cigarette, which has almost burned away._ _

__But then the door opens and they both look up to see Billy standing in the doorway taking in the scene. Their knees touching, Frances holding his cigarette._ _

__“Hey Frances,” Billy says flatly. “Your boyfriend’s here.”_ _

__“Who?” But Billy just looks at her pointedly and then she gets up with a small Oh, and hurries past him._ _

__“I don’t like this fuckin’ guy,” Billy says when she’s gone. “That should be you, man. He ordered a steak sandwich so I gave him your cold one. Fuck that asshole. I’ll make you a nice fresh one.”_ _

__“Thanks, Billy. Hey listen, what’s with the box up there?”_ _

__“Secret Santa box. Me and the girls do it every year. And this year the boss is letting us close up early for a party. You done with that ice?”_ _

__Brian’s sitting at the counter._ _

__When Frances sees Javi approaching, her eyes flick nervously between the two men._ _

__“Hey Billy, I’ll take that sandwich to go,” says Javi. Then he turns to Brian and offers his bruised hand to shake. “Javi. You must be Bryson. Heard a lot about you around here.”_ _

__“You know Shelby,” says Frances hastily as the men are shaking hands. “She just loves to talk about you.”_ _

__“Ah! She sure does. Hello Javi, it’s good to meet you. It’s Brian, by the way,” he adds in an amiable stage-whisper._ _

__He looks like he played football in high school, Javi thinks. Drinks Bud Lite. Probably grills every weekend. Brian’s eyes settle on Javi’s cut and he looks like he’s about to remark on it but then he turns back to Frances._ _

__“Oh, I almost forgot. Here’s that book you wanted to borrow.” He pulls a book out of his briefcase and Javi reads the cover as Brian slides it across the counter to Frances. It is a book on marketing. “You forgot to take it home with you on Saturday.”_ _

__“Gosh, did I? You’re real sweet to bring it here,” she says, putting it under the counter. “I appreciate it.”_ _

__“You’re welcome, sweetie,” he smiles._ _

__Billy slaps the foil-wrapped sandwich on the counter and shoots Brian a filthy look which he doesn’t notice because he’s now back to studying Javi’s face._ _

__“That looks real nasty, Javi. Who gave you the shiner?”_ _

__Javi nods at Frances. “She did. I stiffed her on her tip yesterday. You make sure and be generous now. She’s got a hell of a left hook.” Javi pulls out his wallet and drops some money on the counter._ _

__Frances folds her arms and shakes her head at him with a smile so fond he thinks he’d get drunk on it if he looked too long. He keeps his eyes on her and gives her a wink as he pushes an obscenely large bill into the tip jar._ _

__“See you later. Nice meeting you, Bernie.”_ _

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [mourningbirds1](http://mourningbirds1.tumblr.com) on tumblr  
> 


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